The Impact
of After-School Programs
That Promote Personal
and Social Skills
Joseph A. Durlak
Loyola University Chicago
Executive
Summary
Roger P. Weissberg
University of Illinois Chicago
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and
Emotional Learning (CASEL)
2007
This report is based on a grant awarded to the
authors by the William T. Grant Foundation.
Acknowledgments: This report is based on a grant (Grant #2212) awarded to the authors by the
William T. Grant Foundation.
Suggested citation: Durlak, J. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2007). The impact of after-school programs
that promote personal and social skills. Chicago, IL: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and
Emotional Learning.
This document may be retrieved from www.casel.org.
Additional questions about this study or related work may be addressed to :
Joseph A. Durlak, PhD
Department of Psychology
Loyola University Chicago
6525 N. Sheridan Road
Chicago, Il 60626
Email: jdurlak@luc.edu
2
Roger P. Weissberg, PhD
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and
Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Department of Psychology (MC 285)
University of Illinois at Chicago
1007 West Harrison Street
Chicago, IL 60607-7137
Email: rpw@uic.edu
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
2007
Executive Summary
vidence is mounting that where and how youth spend their time outside
of normal school hours has important implications for their development. On the negative side, estimates suggest that more than 7 million
children in the United States are without adult supervision for some period of
time after school. This unsupervised time puts youth at risk for such negative
outcomes as academic and behavioral problems, drug use and other types of
risky behavior (Weisman & Gottfredson, 2001). On the positive side, young
people benefit when they spend time engaged in structured pursuits that offer
opportunities for positive interactions with adults and peers, encourage them
to contribute and take initiative, and contain challenging and engaging tasks
that help them develop and apply new skills and personal talents (American
Youth Policy Forum, 2006; Carnegie Corporation, 1992; Larson & Verma, 1999;
National Research Council & Institute of Medicine, 2002).
As a result, there has been increasing interest in after-school programs
(ASPs) that can provide youth with a safe and supportive adult-supervised
environment and offer them various growth-enhancing opportunities, including
activities and experiences that promote academic, personal, social and recreational development. There is strong public support for after-school programs,
particularly from working parents who cannot be with their children immediately after school. Funding from state, private and federal sources has supported existing ASPs and created new offerings in many communities. The federal
government invested $3.6 billion in after-school programs in 2002
(http://www.financeprojectinfo.org/Publications/FundingGuide2003.pdf).
What is known about the impact of after-school programs? Previous reviews
have concentrated on the academic benefits of programs that offer tutoring or
other forms of academic assistance to youth, and the results have been mixed.
One review of 35 studies reported that the test scores of low-income, at-risk
youth improved significantly in both reading and mathematics after they participated in after-school programs (Lauer et al., 2006). Academic outcomes for
other youth, however, have been inconsistent (Kane, 2003; Scott-Little,
Hamann & Jurs, 2002; Vandell et al., 2004; Zief, Lauver & Maynard, 2004). As
a result, authors have stressed the need for careful evaluations of the effectiveness of different programs and the factors associated with positive outcomes,
along with realistic expectations about the academic gains that can be achieved
(Bodilly & Beckett, 2005; Granger & Kane, 2004; Vandell et al., 2004, 2005).
However, the personal and social benefits of after-school programs have been
somewhat overlooked, at least in terms of formal evaluation. Many acknowledge that after-school programs can improve young people’s personal and social
development, and findings from some individual studies have been positive
(e.g., Harvard Family Research Project, 2003). But no review has been done to
evaluate systematically the impact of after-school programs that attempt to
enhance youths’ personal and social skills, identify the nature and magnitude
of the outcomes of such programs, and describe the features that characterize
E
The Impact of After-School Programs That Promote Personal and Social Skills
Estimates suggest
that more than 7
million children in
the United States are
without adult
supervision for some
period of time after
school.
3
Theory and research
about skills training
of children and
adolescents indicate
that learning is
more likely to occur
when evidencebased training
approaches are
used.
effective programs. These are the goals of the current review.
All the programs in the current review were selected because their overall
mission included promoting young people’s personal and social development.
Many programs offer a mix of activities, but the current review concentrates on
those aspects of each program that are devoted to developing youths’ personal
and social skills.
There is extensive evidence from a wide range of promotion, prevention and
treatment interventions that youth can be taught personal and social skills
(Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2003;
Commission on Positive Youth Development, 2005; L’Abate & Milan, 1985;
Greenberg et al., 2003). Moreover, theory and research about skills training of
children and adolescents indicate that learning is more likely to occur when evidence-based training approaches are used (Collaborative for Academic, Social,
and Emotional Learning, 2003; Durlak, 1997, 2003; Elias et al., 1997; National
Research Council & Institute of Medicine, 2002; Payton et al. 2000; Weissberg &
Greenberg, 1998). Effective approaches to skills development are sequential,
active, focused and explicit. Knowing this, we hypothesized that programs that
used all four approaches to promote youths’ personal and social skills would be
more successful than those that did not, and we developed a method to capture
the application of these evidence-based approaches. (The rationale and coding
methodology for these variables are described in the full report.)
We expected that youth would benefit in multiple ways from effective programming, so we examined outcomes in three general areas: feelings and attitudes, indicators of behavioral adjustment, and school performance. Our objective was to answer two research questions:
1. What types of outcomes can we expect from after-school programs that
attempt to foster young people’s personal and social skills?
2. Can we identify program characteristics that are associated with better
results?
Method
We only considered after-school programs that attempted to promote personal
and social skills. The personal and social skills targeted in these programs
could include one or more skills in such areas as problem-solving, conflict resolution, self-control, leadership, responsible decision-making, and enhancement
of self-efficacy and self-esteem. We defined after-school programs as interventions that were offered to children between the ages of 5 and 18, operated during at least part of the school year (i.e., September to June) and occurred outside of normal school hours, which are typically 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Monday
through Friday. To be included, reports had to have a control group, present
sufficient information for analysis and appear by Dec. 31, 2005.
A careful and systematic search for published and unpublished studies netted a set of reports that provided information on 73 programs. We conducted a
meta-analysis to evaluate the magnitude of effects obtained from each program.
This summary focuses on the major findings. The technical aspects of the
analyses are contained in the full report.
4
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
2007
Results
The two most important findings were:
1. Youth who participate in after-school programs improve significantly in
three major areas: feelings and attitudes, indicators of behavioral adjustment, and school performance. More specifically, after-school programs succeeded in improving youths’ feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem,
school bonding (positive feelings and attitudes toward school), positive social
behaviors, school grades and achievement test scores. They also reduced
problem behaviors (e.g., aggression, noncompliance and conduct problems)
and drug use. In sum, after-school programs produced multiple benefits that
pertain to youths’ personal, social and academic life.
2. It was possible to identify effective programs: Programs that used evidencebased skill training approaches were consistently successful in producing
multiple benefits for youth, while those that did not use such procedures
were not successful in any outcome area.
Evidence-Based Training Approaches:
Drawing on theory and research about skills training, we applied two criteria
related to the training process and two criteria related to program content to
identify programs that used evidence-based training approaches to promote
personal and social skills. The two criteria related to process were the presence
of a sequenced set of activities to achieve skill objectives (sequenced), and the
use of active forms of learning (active). The two criteria related to content were
the presence of at least one program component focused on developing personal or social skills (focus), and the targeting of specific personal or social skills
(explicit).
Thirty-nine programs met all four of the above criteria, while 27 programs
did not. When we compared the outcomes from the two sets of programs, a
clear pattern emerged: The former programs yielded significant positive results
on all seven of the outcome categories mentioned above (improved feelings of
self-confidence and self-esteem, school bonding, positive social behaviors,
school grades and achievement test scores, together with reduced problem
behaviors and drug use), while the latter did not produce positive results for
any category. When it comes to enhancing personal and social skills, effective
programs are SAFE—sequenced, active, focused and explicit.
Youth who
participate in afterschool programs
improve
significantly in three
major areas: feelings
and attitudes,
indicators of
behavioral
adjustment, and
school performance.
Discussion
There are at least three reasons why our findings should be deemed credible.
1. We searched the literature carefully and systematically for relevant reports,
and assembled a representative and unbiased sample of published and
unpublished evaluations. (Indeed, many of the reports were scrutinized for
the first time for our review.) We evaluated a large number of after-school
programs (n=73). Sixty percent of the evaluated reports appeared after 2000.
As a result, this review presents an up-to-date perspective on a rapidly growing body of research literature.
2. We only considered reports that included control groups.
The Impact of After-School Programs That Promote Personal and Social Skills
5
On the basis of these
results, we strongly
recommend that
after-school
programs seeking to
promote personal
and social skills use
the evidence-based
approaches
described in this
report.
6
3. To substantiate the findings regarding the characteristics of effective programs, in our analyses we controlled for the possible influence of several
methodological features found in the reports.
Current data offer clear empirical support for the conclusion that well-run
ASPs can produce a variety of positive benefits for participating youth. More
specifically, there is significant improvement in youths’ feelings and attitudes
(i.e., their self-perceptions and bonding to school), their behavioral adjustment
(i.e., increases in positive social behaviors and decreases in problem behaviors
and drug use), and in their school grades and level of academic achievement.
We confirmed that effective programs employed skill-development activities
that were sequential, active, focused and explicit. It is important to stress that
only those programs that followed these four evidence-based training approaches in their program components devoted to skill development produced significant changes in any outcomes. In other words, it is the combination of both
training process (i.e., sequential and active) and program content (i.e., focused
and explicit) that leads to positive results.
On the basis of these results, we strongly recommend that after-school programs seeking to promote personal and social skills use the evidence-based
approaches described in this report. (Others have mentioned the importance
one or more of these features in after-school programs as well: see Larson &
Verma, 1999; Miller, 2003; National Research Council & Institute of Medicine,
2002). Not only can participants benefit in multiple ways if these components
are included, but success is unlikely if they are missing. To improve youths’
personal and social skills, programs must devote sufficient time to skill
enhancement, be explicit about what they wish to achieve, use activities that
are coordinated and sequenced to achieve their purpose, and require active
involvement on the part of participants.
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
2007
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